Frequent change of context is a characteristic inherent to mobile communication. Mobile communication terminals, such as mobile radio telephones, personal computers, or personal digital assistants (PDA) equipped for mobile communication via radio networks, change constantly their location within a communication network or move to other communication networks. For example, the mobile communication terminals visit a network operated by a foreign operator or access a wireless radio network via another access point. In addition to transitions within one or between multiple communication networks, mobile communication terminals also move between different peripheral devices, using different wireless interfaces for interacting with these peripheral devices, for example payment terminals, ticket terminals, access control devices, printers, scanners or computers, as well as between respective software applications. In these constant transitions, the mobile communication terminals are exposed continuously to a change of context, requiring that the mobile communication terminals operate context-specifically with different operational parameters and/or software elements, that the mobile communication terminals are provided with different cryptographic means and authorisations, and/or that the users of the mobile communication terminals are provided context-specifically with information.
Because, in view of the almost unlimited number of possible context changes, the storage space required for storing the context data elements would be very large, and because context-specific data elements need to be provided also to the mobile communication terminal for unforeseen or new context changes, respectively, it is advantageous to supply dynamically to the mobile communication terminal the context-specific data elements to be used during a context change.
In EP 1 530 342, described is a data transmission method in which data contents are delivered from a server to a mobile communication terminal. In addition, operating conditions assigned to the data contents are transmitted to the mobile communication terminal. The operating conditions determine a defined area within which the data contents are permitted to be forwarded. The mobile communication terminal determines its current position and forwards the data contents to another communication terminal, only if the current position is within the defined area.
According to US 2004/0199663, captured in a centralized server is information related to a user's client server interactions. This information is considered for forwarding messages. For example, this information includes the time of the last interaction, the current or past presence, or a predicted access time.